"Damn you and him and the sausage!"
"Absolutely. But listen. He can't remember who he is or where he was born or what his name is, and he's broke; so, dash it, I must look after him. You see, he gave me a bit of sausage."
Mr. Brewster's frenzy gave way to an ominous calm.
"I'll give him two seconds to clear out of here. If he isn't gone by then I'll have him thrown out"
Archie was shocked.
"You don't mean that?"
"I do mean that."
"But where is he to go?"
"Outside."
"But you don't understand. This chappie has lost his memory because he was wounded in the war. Keep that fact firmly fixed in the old bean. He fought for you. Fought and bled for you. Bled profusely, by Jove. AND he saved my life!"
"If I'd got nothing else against him, that would be enough."
"But you can't sling a chappie out into the cold hard world who bled in gallons to make the world safe for the Hotel Cosmopolis."
Mr. Brewster looked ostentatiously at his watch.
"Two seconds!" he said.
There was a silence. Archie appeared to be thinking. "Right-o!" he said at last. "No need to get the wind up. I know where he can go. It's just occurred to me I'll put him up at my little shop."
The purple ebbed from Mr. Brewster's face. Such was his emotion that he had forgotten that infernal shop. He sat down. There was more silence.
"Oh, gosh!" said Mr. Brewster.
"I knew you would be reasonable about it," said Archie, approvingly. "Now, honestly, as man to man, how do we go?"
"What do you want me to do?" growled Mr. Brewster.
"I thought you might put the chappie up for a while, and give him a chance to look round and nose about a bit"
"I absolutely refuse to give any more loafers free board and lodging."
"Any MORE?"
"Well, he would be the second, wouldn't he?"
Archie looked pained.
"It's true," he said, "that when I first came here I was temporarily resting, so to speak; but didn't I go right out and grab the managership of your new hotel? Positively!"
"I will NOT adopt this tramp."
"Well, find him a job, then."
"What sort of a job?"
"Oh, any old sort"
"He can be a waiter if he likes."
"All right; I'll put the matter before him."
He returned to the bedroom. The Sausage Chappie was gazing fondly into the mirror with a spotted tie draped round his neck.
"I say, old top," said Archie, apologetically, "the Emperor of the Blighters out yonder says you can have a job here as waiter, and he won't do another dashed thing for you. How about it?"
"Do waiters eat?"
"I suppose so. Though, by Jove, come to think of it, I've never seen one at it."
"That's good enough for me!" said the Sausage Chappie. "When do I begin?"
CHAPTER XIX
REGGIE COMES TO LIFE
The advantage of having plenty of time on one's hands is that one has leisure to attend to the affairs of all one's circle of friends; and Archie, assiduously as he watched over the destinies of the Sausage Chappie, did not neglect the romantic needs of his brother- in-law Bill. A few days later, Lucille, returning one morning to their mutual suite, found her husband seated in an upright chair at the table, an unusually stern expression on his amiable face. A large cigar was in the corner of his mouth. The fingers of one hand rested in the armhole of his waistcoat: with the other hand he tapped menacingly on the table.
As she gazed upon him, wondering what could be the matter with him, Lucille was suddenly aware of Bill's presence. He had emerged sharply from the bedroom and was walking briskly across the floor. He came to a halt in front of the table.
"Father!" said Bill.
Archie looked up sharply, frowning heavily over his cigar.
"Well, my boy," he said in a strange, rasping voice. "What is it? Speak up, my boy, speak up! Why the devil can't you speak up? This is my busy day!"
"What on earth are you doing?" asked Lucille.
Archie waved her away with the large gesture of a man of blood and iron interrupted while concentrating.
"Leave us, woman! We would be alone! Retire into the jolly old background and amuse yourself for a bit. Read a book. Do acrostics. Charge ahead, laddie."
"Father!" said Bill, again.
"Yes, my boy, yes? What is it?"
"Father!"
Archie picked up the red-covered volume that lay on the table.
"Half a mo', old son. Sorry to stop you, but I knew there was something. I've just remembered. Your walk. All wrong!"
"All wrong?"
"All wrong! Where's the chapter on the Art. of Walking? Here we are. Listen, dear old soul. Drink this in. 'In walking, one should strive to acquire that swinging, easy movement from the hips. The correctly-poised walker seems to float along, as it were.' Now, old bean, you didn't float a dam' bit. You just galloped in like a chappie charging into a railway restaurant for a bowl of soup when his train leaves in two minutes. Dashed important, this walking business, you know. Get started wrong, and where are you? Try it again.... Much better." He turned to Lucille. "Notice him float along that time? Absolutely skimmed, what?"
Lucille had taken a seat,-and was waiting for enlightenment.
"Are you and Bill going into vaudeville?" she asked.
Archie, scrutinising-his-brother-in-law closely, had further criticism to make.
"'The man of self-respect and self-confidence,'" he read, "'stands erect in an easy, natural, graceful attitude. Heels not too far apart, head erect, eyes to the front with a level gaze'--get your gaze level, old thing!--'shoulders thrown back, arms hanging naturally at the sides when not otherwise employed'--that means that, if he tries to hit you, it's all right to guard--'chest expanded naturally, and abdomen'--this is no place for you, Lucille. Leg it out of earshot--'ab--what I said before--drawn in somewhat and above all not protruded.' Now, have you got all that? Yes, you look all right. Carry on, laddie, carry on. Let's have two-penn'orth of the Dynamic Voice and the Tone of Authority--some of the full, rich, round stuff we hear so much about!"
Bill fastened a gimlet eye upon his brother-in-law and drew a deep breath.
"Father!" he said. "Father!"
"You'll have to brighten up Bill's dialogue a lot," said Lucille, critically, "or you will never get bookings."
"Father!"
"I mean, it's all right as far as it goes, but it's sort of monotonous. Besides, one of you ought to be asking questions and the other answering. Mill ought to be saying, 'Who was that lady I saw you coming down the street with?' so that you would be able to say, 'That wasn't a lady. That was my wife.' I KNOW! I've been to lots of vaudeville shows."
Bill relaxed his attitude. He deflated his chest, spread his heels, and ceased to draw in his abdomen.
"We'd better try this another time, when we're alone," he said, frigidly. "I can't do myself justice."
"Why do you want to do yourself justice?" asked Lucille.
"Right-o!" said Archie, affably, casting off his forbidding expression like a garment. "Rehearsal postponed. I was just putting old Bill through it," he explained, "with a view to getting him into mid-season form for the jolly old pater."
"Oh!" Lucille's voice was the voice of one who sees light in darkness. "When Bill walked in like a cat on hot bricks and stood there looking stuffed, that was just the Personality That Wins!"
"That was it."
"Well, you couldn't blame me for not recognising it, could you?"
Archie patted her head paternally.
"A little less of the caustic critic stuff," he said. "Bill will be all right on the night. If you hadn't come in then and put him off his stroke, he'd have shot out some amazing stuff, full of authority and dynamic accents and what not. I tell you, light of my soul, old Bill is all right! He's got the winning personality up a tree, ready whenever he wants to go and get it. Speaking as his backer and trainer, I think he'll twist your father round his little finger. Absolutely! It wouldn't surprise me if at the end of five minutes the good old dad started pumping through hoops and sitting up for lumps of sugar."